Contents

News and views

• Using L1 in the classroom
• Teaching contemporary and archaic vocabulary 

Warmer of the month

The Alphabet Game

Step 1: Choose a topic to revise or study and divide your class into teams (pairs or groups).
Step 2: Ask 1 student from each team to write the alphabet on a piece of paper or write the alphabet on the board (one alphabet per team)
Step 3: Reveal to the students the topic you have chosen and tell them they have to write one word for each letter of the alphabet on that topic.
Step 4: When a team completes their alphabet, they shout ‘Stop!’ and all teams have to stop writing.
Step 5: Collect in the papers and mark them. 2 points for a unique answer, 1 point for a duplicated answer. The team with most points wins.

Word of the month

PARSNIPs -  an acronym for certain topics that ELT publishers avoid in course books. The individual letters stand for politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms and pork.

Interview

Silvana Richardson talks about the native vs. non-native debate, L1 in the classroom and what makes a great teacher. In her interview, she mentions TEFL Equity Advocates and you can find out more about them here.

Teacher’s dilemma

One of your students is confident, outspoken and keen to use natural-sounding phrases like ‘by the way’ and ‘it depends on’. However, they continuously make basic grammar mistakes. When you try to correct them, they shrug and say, ‘I know, I know’, but makes no effort to improve.

What do you do?

Q&A

1. “Do you think ’having fun’ is an essential part of the learning process?”
2. “A lot of teachers are unsure about how to approach error correction in class. What is your advice?”
3. “What is the most rewarding thing about being a teacher?”